Rinehart moniker in hot demand at first book outings

AUSTRALIA'S richest person, Gina Rinehart, has been signing hundreds of books at a multi-city tour this week, including a Thursday night love-in for Sydney's business elite, who queued happily for the chance to have a quick chat with the iron ore magnate, and have their $40 copy autographed.

The launch of Mrs Rinehart's first book, Northern Australia and Then Some, which is a collection of speeches, personal pictures and columns penned for a mining magazine, was attended by more than 300 members of the Sydney Mining Club and other invitees. On Friday night the launch moved on to Melbourne with equal flourish at an event hosted by the Institute of Public Affairs.

Northern Australia promises ideas about ''national prosperity and an intimate glimpse of the life and times'' of Mrs Rinehart, according to the book's editor, Eden Cox. It also touches on familiar themes including cost pressures of mining and concerns about sovereign debt.

Mrs Rinehart said the Sydney launch was timed to coincide with the 60th anniversary of her late father Lang Hancock's flight over the Pilbara when he discovered the region's huge iron ore deposits. Although mining dominated much of the discussion, one audience member was more focused on Mrs Rinehart's more contemporary investment: namely the media.

Gina Rinehart arrives at Sydney's Four Seasons Hotel for the book launch. Photo: Rob Homer

Mrs Rinehart, who has made loss-making investments in the Ten Network (owning 10 per cent) and The Age's owner, Fairfax Media (almost 15 per cent), said her family had been involved with the media since her childhood, with her father launching the now defunct Perth newspaper the Sunday Independent, and then the industry newspaper the National Miner.

''We've now got the opportunity to be in Fairfax - well, a partial opportunity that one - and I'm also in Ten. I think it's good for people outside the media industry, and basically I am, to know something about other industries, and to perhaps be on the boards,'' she said.

Mrs Rinehart was joined at the head table by her daughter Ginia. Also at the table was former Commonwealth Bank chief and future fund chairman David Murray and Channel Ten chairman Lachlan Murdoch, who left shortly before dinner for an overseas flight.

Mr Murray, whose interview with newspaper columnist and broadcaster Andrew Bolt is transcribed in one section of Ms Rinehart's book, described Mrs Rinehart and her father as ''inspirational and successful Australians''.

Prominent climate sceptic Ian Plimer, a director of Mrs Rinehart's Roy Hill Holdings and lobby group Australians for Northern Development and Economic Vision, said: ''She [Mrs Rinehart] gets pilloried by those that live off her wealth, and to me that's an absolute disgrace.''